A student sit-in outside a library in Khuzdar has ended after the district administration accepted the protesters' demands, agreeing to open both of the city's digital libraries to male and female students and to restore cancelled registrations.

According to the understanding reached with the Deputy Commissioner of Khuzdar, students at both digital libraries will be allowed to study without discrimination and may use whichever library is more convenient for them, based on where they live. Registrations that had earlier been cancelled now will be restored.

The terms were set out in a charter of demands drawn up by the students, which the Deputy Commissioner endorsed with the word "Agreed" and his signature. The charter called for the withdrawal of the order removing male students from the digital library and transferring them elsewhere; the restoration of students' registrations at the digital library and at the Captain (Retired) Shaheed Ashiq Usman Public Library; both libraries to be opened to male and female students so each could attend the one nearest to them; and an assurance that no retaliatory or administrative action such as the registration of FIRs would be taken against students who had taken part in the protest.

Students ended their sit-in once the demands were accepted.

Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti also spoke to the protesters directly by telephone, according to sources, and assured them that their demands would be implemented.

The students had been protesting for several days against a district administration order that designated the Allama Muhammad Umar Din Puri Digital Library exclusively for female students and directed male students to move to the newly established Captain (Retired) Shaheed Ashiq Usman Public Library within three days. The order, issued by the Office of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), had cited a rise in the number of female members and the aim of providing a more conducive study environment.

That decision, along with the cancellation of some registrations and an earlier increase in fees, prompted students to hold a rally to the Deputy Commissioner's office and then an overnight sit-in on the road outside the library, seated with their books. In an open letter to the Chief Minister, they had argued that the library which has operated for about seven years without any gender-based dispute should be preserved for quiet study, research and competitive-examination preparation, and had cited the constitutional guarantees of equality before the law and the right to education. Their central demand had been that both libraries instead be run with male and female sections.

Published in Balochistan Dispatch, July 30th, 2026